Change Happens!

Remember the old bumper sticker “Shit happens!” (Inspired by Forrest Gump, haha).  Change happens in our world, change happens in our nation, change happens in our lives, change happens in our workplace. It sure seems that we cannot get away from change doesn’t it?

Nebraska’s unemployment rate is 2.5%. The average worker stays in their job for 4.4 years and in our industry that might be cut in half. The janitorial industry’s annualized average turnover rate ranges from 75 to 400%!! We are familiar with change.

When we face change that feels particularly challenging and even debilitating (losing key management or more than one at a time) it is important to remember what we do have and what we do have that is constant.  Despite change that inevitably will happen to all of us, right now on the executive management team we have over 45 years of experience running the company and over 350 years of experience in the entire company. And we still hold on to the vision of being the premier cleaning company in Lincoln, Lancaster County. We still work toward this vision by providing extraordinary service, by conducting business honestly, by providing opportunities for employees, and by growing and remaining profitable. And when we experience change and we always will, we fall back on our vision ad mission what we value: Growth, Integrity, Wisdom, Achievement, Legacy, Creativity/Innovation.

Because change happens we need to anticipate change and sniff it out go looking for signs that its coming, we need to adapt quickly to change so we can get on with experiencing good things, then we need to do the hard work of changing – not only our minds but our actions.  In fact, the mind is a powerful thing and will not change until our actions change.   We reinforce the mind change by the corresponding actions.  The tricky part is the mind keeps us from changing our actions.  It is a vicious cycle we have to break out of.  And always remember we can (and should) ENJOY change. It’s an adventure, it makes us feel young again, it keeps an otherwise boring life exciting.

I remember years back when Jon and I were parents of two young children; we had family friends that we did everything with. Their kids were our kids’ ages and that was quite a feat considering Jerry and Daniel are 9 years apart. We spent holidays with them and played cards with them every week. When they went through a divorce, I didn’t handle change very well. I reacted poorly and we are no longer friends with either of them. However, when I finally embraced this change in our lives accepting that that chapter had closed I was able to move on to a new chapter and we found friendship with family friends that lasted for 12 years.

If you are interested like I am in reading more about how to deal with change, I’d like to introduce you to a book I’m reading. It is a fast read in the form of a short parable that illustrates change, opportunity and challenge in an approachable manner using 2 mice and 2 little people who live in a maze.